A few months ago, leaving the show “no bears” from Jafar Panahiwhich was done within Festival in Thessaloniki, we got the impression that we saw the film is not just special, but brave. The Iranian filmmaker, who has been imprisoned in his homeland since last summer, has now gone on a hunger strike, as his wife and son announced yesterday, in October the country’s highest court overturned the decision according to which Panahi is being held on charges of “anti-government propaganda”, but he remains behind bars.

“In response to the illegal and inhumane treatment by the Islamic regime’s justice system and its hostage-holding security forces, I will stop eating, drinking and taking medicine until my possibly lifeless body is released from this prison.” says in the statement. Panahi himself, who was arrested in July last year when he tried to find out the reason for the imprisonment of his other prominent colleague, Mohammad Rasulov.

As you know, of course, a lot has happened since then. In September, the entire planet was shocked by the assassination of young Mahshi Amini by Iranian vice police, followed by bloody protests and street fighting that left more than 500 people dead. At the aforementioned screening in Thessaloniki, a group of women activists held up a banner on the Olympic stage with the words “Woman Life Freedom” written in English and Arabic in solidarity with the struggling women of Iran.

Famous Iranian director Jafar Panahi has been in prison since the summer.

Jafar Panahi’s film, filmed secretly and remotely, uses the genius and revealing of the situation: the protagonist is there himself, playing the director, who is trying to shoot the film from a distance due to the persecution of the regime. Finally, he also becomes involved in a tragic case of a moral nature against the backdrop of an Iranian village. “Bears Don’t Exist” won the committee’s Grand Prix at the last Venice Film Festival, and at the box office it was not even – and this is a shame – at the box office in our country.

But it is not only Panahi and Rasulov. It is estimated that at least 100 artists and professionals in the Iranian film industry have been arrested or denied the right to make films. Just a month ago, Tarane Alidousti, a prominent star of Asghar Faradi’s Oscar-winning films, was released after a three-week prison sentence for publicly criticizing the regime. Faradi himself, like The Bears protagonist Mina Cavani and many others, live in exile abroad for years to avoid persecution.

And this situation of the ongoing immigration policy is vividly, but also remarkably tactfully described by the son of Jafar Panahi, Panah, in his first film called “Figeme!”. There, a family of four crosses the Iranian countryside, heading towards the border. It is never actually spoken of, but the intention is for the young son to flee to neighboring Turkey. Throughout the journey, the father of the family had his legs in plaster. Let’s hope that Panaha Panahi’s father doesn’t get worse.